I am so excited to start teaching at Holy Name. I had such a warm welcome these last few days and am so lucky to have a great class! They are all so kind and helpful.
For the next two weeks we have story book theatre here at the school. In our class we are lucky to have the very talented Selena Wong. She has taught for over five years, is a vocal coach, actress and is now one of teachers with Story book theatre. She is also performing in The elves and the shoe maker at stage west. We are very happy to have her with us and look forward to all her ideas and creativity to make this concert the best ever.
We have kept some of our daily routines through out the day to keep the students engaged and on task. I am sending a letter home today with them with a small introduction of myself and how I run my classroom. I am sure it will take sometime for all of us to adjust to these changes but am sure once we iron everything out we will have a great time.
Some of the ideas I have for the classroom are literacy centres, which allow the children to work on their french oral skills as well as anything we might have covered in class. There will be different centres that will be rotated everyday to allow everyone a chance. I keep these same centres for two weeks and then change them to go along with any themes that we might be covering. During this time I will be taking a group of students to work on their reading strategies, decoding, comprehension,story predictions and so on. I will also give the students a bag filled with appropriate levelled books that will be kept in class to read during silent reading time.They will keep these books for a week and then change them moving up as they are ready. I strongly encourage that you read with your child at home in french. There are tons of libraries with great resources and appropriate levelled books for your child. I can always go with you a couple of times and help you pick out books if you want, just let me know in advance.
I also have a reward system that has work great for me in the past. Like i have mentioned in the letter i sent home today, I view my class as a community and most communities work together to have success. The students get points for working together, being helpful to others inside and outside the classroom, for solving problems and so on. As a group we sit down and go over some of the things they might want to win with their points.(Hot chocolate, guest reader, free time) We have started at only 30 points, but it will be increased to 50 then 100. They also lose points as well.
With any French immersion classroom its hard to keep the students from speaking English, its especially hard when you know your teacher speaks English! I have used Je parle en francais charts which are on the students desks.By having the charts on their desk its a reminder to them to speak french. When they speak French and I have heard them make an effort to do so I will give them a sticker for their chart. However if I hear them speak English I remove a sticker. I would really like for us to get to the point where the only time we speak English is during English class.
We are also making our decorations for our scene in the Christmas concert. If you could please send in a glass mason jar that would be wonderful. Selena has also requested that the students bring in a winter hat and scarf that can be left in class as part of their costume. We will also be discussing Christmas traditions in class so feel free to talk about any traditions you had with your family as a child and what you do today. my Christmas tradition when i was young was to go to the woods with my father and find the perfect tree. Then we would decorate it listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas record.I bet some of you had that record! If I could find it now on CD am pretty sure I would keep that tradition alive today! I cant wait to hear some of yours!
That's all for now. Feel free to contact me anytime to ask questions or if you have any concerns. I hope to meet you all at parent teacher interviews! Until then enjoy the rest of your week, keep smiling!
Mme Laurie Anne
No comments:
Post a Comment